The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) has awarded $2.5 million through a fourth round of the Cultivating Access, Rights, and Equity grant program to 26 organizations, including four collaboratives of 15 organizations.
The CARE grant was launched in March 2022 and funds outreach, education, and technical assistance to increase equitable access to New Jersey’s worker benefits and protections. Since its debut, CARE grantees have made contacts with more than 200,000 workers and counseled thousands to help them secure the benefits and rights they are entitled to under the law. They have reached more than 3,800 employers with information on their obligations and compliance.
This year’s program funding will cover initiatives to raise awareness and access to paid family and medical leave, unemployment insurance, and other work rights, including Earned Sick Leave, minimum wage, overtime, wage theft, misclassification, Temporary Workers’ Bill of Rights, and the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights.
“These initiatives are crucial to fostering an equitable workforce where everyone is empowered to thrive,” said Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo.
Awardees include community organizations, worker centers, social service providers, professional associations, libraries, maternal health programs, and faith-based groups that have demonstrated their ability to provide community-centered, culturally relevant, and language-specific programming, and link underserved residents and small businesses with government programs.
The CARE grant program reaches low-wage laborers, workers of color, immigrants, women, refugees, survivors of domestic/sexual violence, and young workers. The program also funds outreach and education to small and immigrant-owned businesses.
Grantees will build the capacity of their staff to provide information on worker benefits and protections through NJDOL training sessions, engage in outreach at community events, provide one-on-one counseling and application assistance to workers, conduct presentations and training programs, run social media and text campaigns, user-test outreach tools and applications, and more.
Several organizations received funding for outreach and education on the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, enacted on July 1, 2024. The law protects the work rights of domestic workers in New Jersey, regardless of their immigration status.
